They're not good at setting traps (unless you count trap spells).

They're also unable to acquire the thief HLAs; there are some interesting ones, and you don't have a good selection of characters who can (realistically) get them. There's Jan Jansen, and there's Haer'Dalis, and that's it.

Turn based does not mean slow.

In the game I'm playing right now, Stranger of Sword City Revisited, combat can be really fast. Enter commands for 6 characters, then just hold the button after selecting "Apply Action". Or, if that's too slow (for example, if the battle is trivial or you're just doing the same thing over and over again), you can skip entering commands by pressing a button, and then choose "Fast Apply" to end the combat round instantly.

See also many of the Dragon Quest remakes (but not DQ8 or later).

Problem with that is that the sleep spell, in its D&D incarnation, is too powerful for a 1st level spell, as it's essentially an instant kill. (Just imagine if an enemy used ti against the party.)

The versions you usually see in non-D&D CRPGs tend to be more tame; they have a decent chance of failure, attacks against it aren't instant kills (2x damage in some WRPGs but not JRPGs), and an enemy may wake up upon being hit.

There's also the issue that physical attack accuracy is way too low, so you can keep missing what should be an easy enemy and then the enemy gets lucky and kills you in one hit. That's not fun gameplay. And BG1 keeps you at level 1 for far too long. (I even ran into an enemy that cast Improved Invisibility with my level 1 party; that's clearly not fair, as there's no counter to that that a level 1 party could reasonably have access to.)

A second weird opinion about games after the 'I don't like tutorials' one:

Some games need no story to be good. = I love games with deep stories, intricate lore and profound meaning with reflections about real life and so on. But there are games with enough mechanics (gameplay) that trying to force a meaningful story in it would probably ruin it in a way.

Some Examples: Monster Hunter series, Mario, some racing games, Serious Sam/Doom like games..

achievements are awesome
so are open world games

most indie games are garbage
especially those artists "games"
where the story is just some new age bs , the gameplay is nearly nonexistent and all it has is some typical hipster style graphics like Gris

You go back and read PC gaming magazines from before Doom exploded and everything is different. The overall tone is night and day different. Writers are talking to readers assuming they are intelligent and interested. There is no condescending "gamer" speak.

When Doom came out it didn't immediately get recognition from the pc gaming focused media. Sure, it's a good "arcade" game, but there look at this strategy, management, simulation whatever over there. That was the immediate reaction.

Fast forward a couple of months after the release of Doom, when it's success was well established, and the tone changes completely. Now everything is RAD and EXTREME and really, really stupid. Readers aren't peers anymore, they are now dumbasses that have to be duped into getting hyped over the next RAD, EXTREME and really dumb product.

Baldur's Gate 2 is one of my favourite games of all time. However, I am also not a huge fan of the RTwP combat. I always thought the game was great despite the combat, not because of it. Imo, turn-based combat is more appropriate for a game that is supposed to be based on a tabletop RPG system. I was never particularly keen on 2nd ed D&D either. My perfect RPG would be BG2 remade using the Temple of Elemental Evil combat system.

I second the point-of-view that it's not really a big problem if the only recruitable thieves in BG2 are dual/multi class. In 2nd ed D&D, thieves can be very proficient at most things you need them for with about 6-7 levels (i.e. trap detection, lock picking). So, having them dual/multi classed is not an issue at all. Sure, high-level single-class thieves can be powerful, but if you want one of those you can always play MP and make your own. A high-level single-class thief is not in any way essential to beat the game.

Despite that, it’s probably the weakest single-class character in this D&D edition. I think this is because of this relative weakness that BG2 proposed only multi-classed or dual-classed thieves. (I think they made the right choice here)

Of course, with pen & paper you can play a scenario that is focused on the high-level thief abilities. But this is not the case of BG2.

That is why I mentioned multiplayer mode (MP). If you start a MP game, but just assign all the characters to yourself, you can use completely custom characters for all 6 slots, if you want to. It doesn't have to be the main character. I did that on my last playthrough - if I recall correctly, I used 4 custom-created characters, which still left me 2 slots for recruited companion NPCs.

If you do that, you can play around with a single-class thief/assassin/bounty hunter, whatever you want. The game set up is pretty flexible.

Yes, that is probably the reason. Although, there are supposedly some quite powerful high-level abilities for thieves and their class kits, but I haven't explored them much myself.

I wasn't able to get multiplayer to work on Linux via WINE. (Classic Edition, as I don't like many of the "fixes" that the Enhanced Edition has made.) Also, this feels like a bit of a hack, and is annoying to actually do.

Also, when I see MP, especially when talking about RPGs, I think of "Magic Points", which is the resource used to cast spells, not multiplayer.

There's still the issue that they are all paired with the same other class, so no Fighter/Thief or Cleric/Thief recruits. (Cleric/Thief is an interesting one, and is one that I think players are not inclined to pick, so I really think they should have included one.)

Also, why no Barbarian, Monk, or Sorcerer recruits? They introduced some interesting classes from 3rd Edition, yet you can't play with them unless you make the main character one of them.

I think I remember you mentioning that before, that you couldn't get BG2 multiplayer working in Wine. I play all my games in Wine in Linux and I'm sure it's worked for me in the past. So, not sure what the issue is.

I don't agree that it's a hack, or annoying to do. Multiplayer is a completely valid mode built into the game. If I recall, the manual recommends using MP if you want to have a completely custom party, and the game plays exactly the same that way as normal single-player does.

So you're blaming the 90s cultural shift on a single video game, rather than an entire cultural shift fronted by marketing busybodies who wanted to find the next big thing?

I have some bad news, then: The shift had already begun before DOOM was even out.

Try [url=https://info.sonicretro.org/Sonic_the_Hedgehog_(16-bit)]1991 or thereabouts.[/url]

Don’t quote me on that, but I think I read several times that the "multiplayer" mode was the original vision of the dev team, you were intended to play with friends or create your own party. The hack being the single player mode added afterwards ;)

Here I play on Linux too, and I don’t remember issues with this multiplayer/create-your-own-team mode (classic version through WINE). But it’s been a while, so I might be misremembering.

The Play It Loud campaign ran from July 1994 to September 1996. Doom launched in 1993.

What the heck were you trying to say anyway? That a Nintendo marketing campaign inspired edginess among PC gaming magazines?

You can still read quotes about the substructure of the universe, plus research quotes.

It's OK for a game to be released without music. Better to have no music than to have obviously bad or not enough music. If you can only afford one great tune, maybe skip it altogether or only use for menu or endgame or something.

Now sound, on the other hand, is probably non-negotiable.

(When a game has good music, I leave it on. This isn't hating on music in general. Though most games have music too loud relative to other parts in their mixing.)